God, That Is So Seattle!

I have to admit that I’m a subscriber to Seattle Metropolitan magazine.  As a low-paid public employee, it gives me vicarious joy to see how the other half lives.  Apparenly, there’s lots of great shopping and dining here!

I don’t read the SMet for its economic development insights (that’s what this blog is for!), but I couldn’t help noticing the article on the global health industry in the region and the “evils” of thinking of it as an regional economic driver:

Gloyd finds it encouraging that global health attracts so many more resources today, but he worries when he hears it characterized as an emerging industry and a boon to this region. “This isn’t supposed to be about us,” he says. “For me, global health is about making sure everyone everywhere has the same opportunity to be healthy.” And he sees that focus getting lost in the rush to cash in.

I don’t want to debate the pros and cons of an economic development approach to the global health industry, but I do think that this is exactly the kind of attitude that you hear throughout the state that makes people feel like we don’t have a “pro-business climate.”

There’s something ingrained in the Seattle mindset that says “Uh oh, we better not focus too much on money and financial success, that’s bad!”. I remember when I first moved here from Philly how hated Bill Gates was (before he became the world’s leading philanthropist), and it seemed to me that people just didn’t like him because he made too much money.  I could understand that coming from Quakers or Calvinists, but how does  a progressive, liberal carpetbagger town get so stuck in that anti-prosperity mindset?  It seems unrelated, but I feel like it’s somehow linked to the exact same emotion that drives people to say that we should “just let Boeing leave.”

I’ll get off my soapbox now that I’ve offended everyone in the city, but let me just end with this: there is nothing inherently in conflict between helping the world and growing jobs.  Isn’t that the basic underpinning of the clean technology movement?  “We can save the world from climate change and make money doing it,” everyone says happily.  That same idea can apply to all sorts of good and benefit…